ARC Review: Seventeen & Gone by Nova Ren Suma

Seventeen & Gone

Author: Nova Ren Suma

Series: -

Genre: Young Adult

Pages: 354

Publisher: Hardie Grant Egmont

Puchase: Amazon - TBD
Australian release date: 1st July 2013

Synopsis. (Goodreads)

Seventeen-year-old Lauren is having visions of girls who have gone missing. And all these girls have just one thing in common—they are 17 and gone without a trace. As Lauren struggles to shake these waking nightmares, impossible questions demand urgent answers: Why are the girls speaking to Lauren? How can she help them? And… is she next? As Lauren searches for clues, everything begins to unravel, and when a brush with death lands her in the hospital, a shocking truth emerges, changing everything.

With complexity and richness, Nova Ren Suma serves up a beautiful, visual, fresh interpretation of what it means to be lost.

Reviews: 3 1/2 out 5 Stars

I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading Seventeen & Gone by Nova Ren Suma and for that I was pleasantly surprised.

This won't be an in-depth review to avoid spoilers, it's the sort of book you need to unravel piece by piece to get the overall clear picture of what is going on yourself; it makes you think right from the onset and stays with you long after you have finished, of course with better understanding of the story's purpose.

Our protagonist is Seventeen year-old Lauren who begins to have visions of  girls who have gone missing ‘the lost girls’; she is intrigued by their stories and feels the need to unravel more. 

Lauren was a likeable character although a little distant; the story is told through her eyes and while she was believable the emotions I felt this story needed to be conveyed were unfortunately lacking from her, she more or less became obsessed about and consumed by the missing girls and if you add her real-life dramas into the mix it made for quite an intense read.

What surprised me was the unclear feeling this book has, there were no definitive answers initially which left me confused but also intrigued by what was actually happening - the psychological aspect was compelling, I was absorbed by the mystery and left saddened by the believability of the subject matter; it’s a story which makes you think and the overall message is extremely poignant.

Hearing the stories of the missing girls - Shyann, Abby, Fiona, Natalie and a few others was interesting but at times a little too much; it became repetitive unfortunately although their back stories could have been quite interesting if there weren’t so many. Abby was a stand-out character to me because of the overall role she played. This was definitely a character driven novel.

The last portion of the book really held my attention; the surprising twist blew me away and really made the story all the more interesting and I found myself satisfied by the overall conclusion and came to understand Lauren and connected more with her as a character – up until this point, I felt indifferent towards her.

This is the first book I have read by Nova Ren Suma, her writing flows beautifully, it’s a gripping story that leaves you thinking long after you have finished reading which I think is a wonderful sign of amazing storytelling. It is a complex and captivating plot and intricately crafted with great attention to detail and researched extremely well.

Overall, Seventeen & Gone is a great psychological thriller with an intriguing mystery; it’s a book which is dark and gritty and held my attention throughout wanting to know more about Lauren, her visions and the missing girls.

Thank-you kindly to Hardie Grant Egmont Australia for providing me with a copy of Seventeen & Gone to read and review.

 

About the author: Nova grew up in small towns across the Hudson Valley and can currently be found in New York City and online at her blog distraction no. 99.

Nova Ren Suma has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and a BA in writing & photography from Antioch College, and has been awarded fiction fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Corporation of Yaddo, and, twice, from the MacDowell Colony. She has published short stories for adults in literary journals including Gulf Coast, LIT, Small Spiral Notebook, and more, and is the author of the tween novel Dani Noir (Simon & Schuster/Aladdin, 2009).

Imaginary Girls (Dutton, 2011) marks her YA debut. She is at work on a new YA novel, slated for future release from Dutton.

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